The view from Top-O-Rock
is changing, as plywood boards fill its once-expansive wall of glass windows
that overlooked the capital city.

Building Commissioner
Tony Harmon said Wednesday the work began last Friday and is being performed by
Kingry Construction, Inc.

“They’re trying to board
it up and secure it and everything,” Harmon said.The city’s Building Commission gave Dr.
Mitchell Rashid and Kamila L. Rashid — Top-O-Rock’s current owners — 21 days to
present a plan for the building last month.The Rashids needed to clean up the broken glass that covers the
property, put plywood in the broken windows and submit a plan of action to the
city for the house, Harmon told the Gazette in May.

There were no crews on
site Wednesday afternoon, but plywood has been installed in some windows, and a
fence now surrounds the structure.The
Rashids purchased the house on Goddard
Road, designed by famed architect Henry Elden, in
2011 for $400,000.Dr. Mitchell Rashid
could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Little has developed
since the Gazette first reported in May that the iconic glass house was in
major disrepair and potentially slated for demolition.For
now, neither the building’s owner Dr. Mitchell Rashid nor Rodney Loftis of
Rodney Loftis & Son Contractors have applied for demolition permits, Harmon
said. Dr. Mitchell Rashid reportedly approached Loftis in May to do the job.

Henry Battle, president
of the Kanawha Valley Historical & Preservation Society, said the nonprofit
organization is acting as a “fiscal agent” for the Save Top-O-Rock group that
was organized by citizens to spare the building from destruction.“We’re willing to do that to help out, as
long as it’s legitimate,” Battle
said of the agreement, which has been done with other historic preservation
initiatives in the past.Shortly after
the Gazette reported Top-O-Rock’s condition, Jennifer Peters started the Save
Top-O-Rock Facebook group and initiated a GoFundMe fundraising campaign.

More than $1,000 of the
group’s $5,000 goal has been raised since May, according to the GoFundMe
webpage.The group’s membership is
nearing 1,500 members, and a petition to save the building has gotten more than
720 signatures.Peters did not return a
call for comment Wednesday.Preservation
Society board member Thom Stevens told the Gazette Wednesday that “there are
positive developments” regarding Top-O-Rock’s condition, but would not explain
what those developments are.

“I think everybody is of
the same mindset that it’s too early to talk about anything publicly,” Stevens
said.“And that’s in order to give all the parties
that are working on it the opportunity to come to a successful resolution.”When asked if a person or organization
offered to purchase the building from the Rashids, Stevens would only say,
“Those are the kind of questions we just can’t comment on at the moment. ”